


all the choirs in my head

by tidelinear



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Gen, MAJOR SPOILERS for Episode 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidelinear/pseuds/tidelinear
Summary: In the coming battle, exhaustion takes a toll.
Relationships: Jet Rocks & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	all the choirs in my head

Ruby, alone and alone and alone, is still running, is only sure she’s still running because peppermint trees flash past out of the corner of her eyes, sporadic and blurry. The courtyard opens before her, more crowded than she would expect in the lavender half-light of bulbrise but she looks only for the glow of Swirlwarden, alight with duty to the House.

Instinct makes her duck and a crossbow bolt thuds into the hard candy brick where her head would have been. She can hear now, the shouts of a Castle Candy at war.

The intruders don’t clank with plate armour like Theo but they aren’t trying to be silent in their approach, trampling over wafer grass damp with morning dew. Ruby, one hand clamped uselessly against the flow of blood from her abdomen, stumbles away, trying to remember where the ladders to the ramparts are stowed. If she can get height, she can find Theo. If she can find Theo — 

The way up is longer than she remembers, every breath laboured, every sound a threat, every other rung on the ladder missing, sacrificed years ago to make the practice swords Jet whittled while keeping a watchful eye on Ruby practicing her balance on the walls. They'd carved themselves a little nook into the ramparts, a relic from wars past, a refuge from droning tutors and boring knights. Ruby, lost in memory, soaked in sorrow, trips over a loose shard of candy and falls, the breath knocked out of her. 

Getting up here was so hard. She can lay here awhile. On her back, Sourscratch hums but Ruby is so tired, the very clothes she’s wearing are heavy, wet and sticky-sweet. 

Blue flashes at the corner of her eye and Ruby’s heart makes its presence felt for the first time since —

She looks, of course she looks, scrambling onto her elbows, ears throbbing with the strength of her surprise. She expects to see the rippling facade of her aunt in the cola puddle, hero of Candia, venerated sister of her father, beloved of her mother, maybe Ruby's own guide, but the image flashes, warps and it's Lazuli but not, sclera dribbling out, corroding lines down raspberry cheeks. _Ruby Rocks_ , Lazuli whispers without opening her mouth, _lady, duchess._

 _Bastard_ , Ruby corrects, automatic as breathing, and the grief strikes like a physical blow, the sight of family even in a reflection loosening something that had broken when —

Something digs into her hand and she would be surprised, if there was room for it, to look down and find her knuckles white around the locket of the sweetest heart.

 _Bastard of the realm_ , Lazuli agrees, her not-voice prickling like milk-silk down her spine. Dizzy, Ruby wants to flinch, wants to get away but she can’t move anything, can’t see anything but the chocolate-toffee slats of the bridge away from Dulcington, can’t hear anything but Jet choking on the air she kept trying to breathe, her sister, her sister, she’d been so scared, she hadn’t wanted to die, she had wanted to save her, her _sister_ — 

_Ruby Rocks,_ comes the not-voice again, _heir to nothing, princess who half-lives_. 

The puddle shimmers like nothing she’s seen cola do before and there is the visage of the Pontifex, serene even as her eyes sink back into her face, sap bleeding sickly green from her ears, following the tendons of her neck to pool in the divot of her collarbones. _Lucky enough to bleed out in the light of the bulb instead._

Ruby smells melted chocolate and gags, but it’s Ciabatta’s voice that rings in her ears, _something your sister didn’t manage, in the end._ Ruby rips herself away from the puddle and she’s back on the bridge, she scrambles backwards on hands and knees, Jet’s in the store and it’s not too late to go back and — and find Liam, and fire the arrow she’d notched on her bow, gather Jet safe in her arms and release her grief like a shock wave to fling those assassins away, maybe, maybe, maybe. 

_She died in the dark_ , Lazuli-Belizabeth-Lapin-Ciabatta tells her, eyes fully hollow now, and in the depths of the sockets something gleams, hungry. _Come see, daughter of cowardice, queen who ran._

The cola ripples invitingly and on any other day it would be insulting as a trap but she’s so tired, she can’t think for the buzzing in her head, she doesn’t know where Liam is, Jet would want her to protect Liam, but she can’t stand, she can’t lift her head, she can’t remember if Jet stirred her tea clockwise or counterclockwise, the joy was always in sneaking into the kitchens, she never thought to check, and the oversight brings bile to her mouth.

_I think you should run._

The locket is white-hot in her palm, and only sheer blind hope keeps her from letting go, maybe — is — 

_Sister of none,_ the voices whisper again, _don’t you want to see her again?_

 _Run_ , like a tidal wave, the strength and stubbornness that comes with being eighteen and never ever older.

Ruby stumbles away from the bridge, expects to hit the other railing but she slams into hard candy. Her hair catches on it, nearly tugs out of its bun and she can take her first deep breath clustered here in the ramparts. She’s not on the bridge, she’s not running away.

On the other end of the courtyard, Payment Day flashes, and a head lolls onto the ground. “ _Not my daughter_ ,” Amethar howls, erupts. Ceresians catch fire around him, and scream.

There is nothing else to do. Ruby Rocks, sister of none, sister forever, lifts her bow.

**Author's Note:**

> this doesn’t say anything, i’m just sad, kids! title from florence + the machine


End file.
